A Free Man of Color

Zusatztext “A smashing debut. Rich and exciting with both substance and spice.” — Star Tribune! Minneapolis “A sparkling gem.” —King Features Syndicate “An astonishing tour de force.” —Margaret Maron “Superb.” — Drood Review of Mystery “A darned good murder mystery.” — USA Today Informationen zum Autor Barbara Hambly  is the author of  Patriot Hearts  and  The Emancipator’s Wife,  a finalist for the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction. She is also the author of  Fever Season,  a  New York Times  Notable Book of the Year ,  and the acclaimed historical Benjamin January series, including the novels  A Free Man of Color  and  Sold Down the River . She lives in California. Klappentext A lush and haunting novel of a city steeped in decadent pleasures . . . and of a man, proud and defiant, caught in a web of murder and betrayal. It is 1833. In the midst of Mardi Gras, Benjamin January, a Creole physician and music teacher, is playing piano at the Salle d'Orleans when the evenings festivities are interrupted-by murder. Ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death. With the authorities reluctant to become involved, Ben begins his own inquiry, which will take him through the seamy haunts of riverboatmen and into the huts of voodoo-worshipping slaves. But soon the eyes of suspicion turn toward Ben-for, black as the slave who fathered him, this free man of color is still the perfect scapegoat. . . . Praise for A Free Man of Color "A smashing debut. Rich and exciting with both substance and spice."-Star Tribune, Minneapolis "A sparkling gem."-King Features Syndicate "An astonishing tour de force."-Margaret Maron "Superb."-Drood Review of Mystery "A darned good murder mystery."-USA TodayThe ochre stucco cottage on Rue Burgundy was silent when January reached it. It was one of a row of four. He listened for a moment at the closed shutters of each of its two front rooms, then edged his way down the muddy slot between the closely set walls of the houses to the yard, where he had to turn sideways and duck to enter the gate. The shutters there were closed as well. The yard boasted a privy, a brick kitchen, and a garçonnière above it. When first he had lived there, his sister had occupied the rear bedroom, his mother the front, the two parlors--one behind the other--being used for the entertainment of St.-Denis Janvier. Although he was only nine years old, Benjamin had slept from the first in the garçonnière, waiting until the house lights were put out and then climbing down the rickety twist of the outside stair to run with Olympe and Will Pavegeau and Nic Gignac on their midnight adventures. He smiled, recalling the white glint of Olympe's eyes as she dared them to follow her to the cemetery, or to the slave dances out on Bayou St. John. His younger sister--his full sister--had been a skinny girl then, like a black spider in a raggedy blue-and-red skirt and a calico blouse a slave woman would have scorned to wear. Having a back room with access to the yard hadmade it easy for her to slip out, though he suspected that if she'd been locked in a dungeon, Olympe would still have managed to get free. Olympe had been fifteen the year of Dominique's birth. The two girls had shared that rear chamber for only a year. Then Dominique had occupied it alone, a luxury for a little girl growing up. But then, Dominique had always been her mother's princess, her father's pride. Presumably Dominique had occupied the room until Henri Viellard had come into her life when she was sixteen. By that time St.-Denis Janvier was dead, leaving his mistress comfortably off, and Livia Janvier had married a cabinetmaker, C...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Barbara Hambly
• Verlag: Bantam Books USA
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 01.06.1998
• EAN: 9780553575262
• ISBN: 978-0-553-57526-2
• Seiten: 412
• Abmessung: 107 mm x 174 mm x 24 mm
• Serien: Benjamin January; Benjamin January
• Thema: Belletristik > Erzählende Literatur